On the last Sunday we were in Leipzig, while walking over to the Thomaskirche for the B Minor Mass concert, I happened to notice a plaque on the wall of a random building and stopped to take a picture of it. I had noticed that the plaque said in big letters, “Max Reger.” All I knew at that time was that the name sounded familiar, and I was pretty sure he had composed some viola works (this turned out to be correct, I was thinking of his Op. 131d, 3 Suites for Solo Viola). Upon closer inspection of the plaque at a later time, I found that it was located at the spot where the Hotel Hentschel, Reger’s place of death, had previously stood. The plaque also informed me that he had been a professor and music director at the Royal Conservatory in Leipzig. I began to wonder, then, what sort of connection this composer had with the city, and since I knew basically nothing about him I decided to do some research.

Max Reger was a German composer and pianist originally from Weiden, and was born in 1873. He showed promise as a keyboard player from a young age as his parents taught him music, and decided in his teens that he wanted to become a musician instead of a teacher like his father had planned for him. He attended the Wiesbaden conservatoire where he began to compose in earnest, and though he gathered some supporters he still faced plenty of criticism as he strayed from the principles of his teachers. Hugo Riemann, his most direct mentor, said he showed a lot of talent at this time but would much later criticize him heavily for his new musical direction. Reger struggled for some time to get works published, but eventually through relentless performance both by himself as an accomplished pianist and others who supported his work, as well as an acquaintance with Richard Strauss, he was able to gain some notoriety. He was inspired quite a bit by the music of Bach and combined this influence with that of later composers such as Brahms and Liszt. In fact, one of Reger’s first major works to gain significant attention was his Fantasia and Fugue on B-A-C-H, Op. 46. With this work in 1901 and others in subsequent years, Reger became well-known throughout Germany and was thus quite recognizable in his time despite his relative obscurity today. From this time and continuing with only a few interruptions until the end of his life, Regertoured extensively both as a composer and a pianist, as well as conducting at times.

Reger’s time in Leipzig began in 1907, when he was appointed music director and professor at the Royal Conservatoire in Leipzig, though he resigned from the music director position after a relatively short time. Unfortunately, Reger’s work was not very well-received by the musical community in Leipzig, and despite his touring success he had a series of unfortunate premiers at the Gewandhaus which led him to leave Leipzig in 1911, taking up a court position in Meiningen. He later moved to Jena at the start of the First World War, but throughout all of this kept his professorship in Leipzig, returning there regularly to teach.  In 1916, he died of heart failure in Leipzig at the age of 43.

Reading Reger’s story left me with a few questions, the most pressing of which was why he is not as well known today despite his fame while he was alive. I believe part of this can be attributed to his early death, as he simply did not have thelongevity of his more famous contemporaries such as Strauss. Another interesting factor that I believe may have contributed to this, though, is the fact that Reger composed few orchestral works, and in fact no large symphonies or operas. He focused instead on chamber music and songs. Now that I have done all this reading, I am excited to go back and listen to more of Max Reger’s work, and glad I have been introduced to this composer by a random plaque on the side of a building!

https://www.maxreger.info/biography

Max Reger (1873-1916)

This concert was definitely the part of the festival I was most looking forward to, as I have been listening to Sir András Schiff’s interpretations for close to two years now. While looking for good resources on the Beethoven Piano Sonatas, I was directed toward a set of talks he did from 2004-2006, one for each of the 32 sonatas, and each before a performance of the respective sonata. I found these interpretations refreshing in that I felt he truly let the music speak for itself. His style in the Beethoven Sonatas clean, dry, precise, and most importantly not avoidant of Beethoven’s sometimes extreme and unexpected dynamic and tempo markings. Schiff is, of course, also known for Bach and I have become pretty familiar with his recordings of the first book of the WTC. I enjoy these as well because of the attention to detail and dedication to the score. So needless to say, I was very excited to see the second book live. I should also note that I do prefer these works played on a harpsichord rather than a piano in general, unless quite a lot of care is taken, as is the case with Schiff.

First of all, I have to comment on how incredible it is to be 71 years old and have the stamina to play for 2 hours 45 minutes with incredible accuracy and sensitivity, especially when half the time you’re playing fugues! It is evident that Schiff knows these works so well that this is simply second nature for him. That said, Schiff played Saturday with much more interpretative freedom than I am used to hearing in his Bach. This included a greater use of the sustain pedal throughout (except in several cases where he chose not to use it at all) and much greater dynamic contrasts. Several times he ended a prelude or fugue in full force with a fortissimo flourish. Often times (much to my enjoyment) when the subject would enter mid-fugue in a booming low voice, Schiff would take full advantage. Tempi were steady though and his touch was as smooth and warm as ever. He gave great care to each line and was able to bring out the counterpoint despite a more washed sound. Also, after thunderous applause, Schiff obliged the audience with a 10 minutes encore (the final prelude and fugue from the first book of the WTC) which he played up to the same standard of excellence?!!

Though perhaps I wasn’t the biggest fan of every interpretive choice, the concert still exceeded my expectations, and I feel very fortunate that I had the opportunity to see such a master of his craft (hopefully not for the last time).

One thing we saw in Leipzig that I was not expecting to enjoy as much as I did was the lieder concert we saw in the Mendelssohn house. I was initially intrigued because l had basically no knowledge of classical lieder (and really only became aware of their existence in the past year or so), and I ended up having a really good time! I thought the way the songs were presented was very interesting, as the environment was much more intimate than what I am used to with concerts like this. I felt like this allowed a greater connection between the audience and performers (even aside from the fact that the singer directly talked to us before and after), and this connection meant that the audience could better feel the emotions portrayed in each song, many of which were about love.  Another aspect of this was that the singer’s dynamic shifts were especially striking, since he could be basically as quiet as he wanted and still be heard, and then project much more for louder sections. I though this dynamic variation was especially interesting, as I looked for recordings of some of the lieder after the concert and every recording I have found had much more subdued dynamics. Granted, this may simply be that it cannot be captured as well in a recording, but I felt that the singer’s use of loud dynamics in certain sections made the emotions of the songs come through much more, and many of the recordings I have found seem to be a bit more flat.

In my search for recordings, I also came across something else which I thought was very interesting. I was looking for a good recording of Schubert’s “Auf dem Flusse,” which was my favorite of the songs that were performed, but my search was completely derailed when the first one I clicked on turned out to be a metal cover of the song. I explored a little more and found that the artist has a few more such metal covers of classical art songs, but I think their version of “Auf dem Flusse” is still my favorite.  I feel that it does a good job of keeping the spirit and emotions of the song while converting it to a heavier and more modern format. One thing I did notice upon listening with the words in front of me is that they left out the third verse of the song, which I think is a bit of a strange decision but does not overly affect the character of the song and the lyrics. My favorite part of the song is the final verse, though, where I feel the changes in character between the first two lines (My heart, in this brook/Do you recognize your own image?) and the second two lines (Is there, under your surface, too,/A surging torrent?) are especially stark. The instrumental drops out quite a bit for these first two lines, giving the song a bit of a reflective quality as the speaker looks inward. Then, for the second two lines, the instrumental ramps up again with driving distorted guitars for the climax of the song, which I feel are perfect for invoking the image of a surging torrent. I think the intersection of metal and classical music is quite an interesting topic that I could probably write a lot more about, but for the sake of brevity I will just mention a few key points. First, there are many metal musicians who have drawn from classical (especially Baroque) music in their work, mainly on a technical and harmonic level. There is even a name for artists who make this the main focus of their music (“neoclassical metal”). Finally, I do think that there is a good argument to be made for classical and metal music having a certain level of compatibility in terms of style. Metal contains a certain amount of dramatic dynamic and character shifts which I feel are well-suited for capturing the sentiments of classical music in a way which other genres are not quite able to. This point especially is one I would like to look more into in the future, and I am so glad I discovered this cover of “Auf dem Flusse” which kicked the whole thing off!

Translations for “Auf dem Flusse” are taken from the program we were given at the Mendelssohn house, and I have linked the cover here in case anyone would like to hear it!

I feel very priveliged to have had the opportunity to perform in our final concert in the Alte Börse, the Old Stock Exchange, Leipzig’s oldest baroque building. In the concert, I played in several ensemble Bach pieces including Contrapunctus No.5 from Die Kunst der Fuge (alongside Vito, Maurice, and Tendekai), “Vivace” from Konzert für zwie Violinen (alongside Noah), and of course our two cantatas — “Jesus bleibet meine Freunde” from BWV 147 and “O große Lieb” from Johannes-Passion. I also had the wonderful opportunity to play “Andante” from Clara Schumann’s Piano Trio!

It was really fun to play the Bach double alongside Noah. It is a piece I have had in my repertoire for many years, but haven’t had the opportunity to perform. It was enjoyable to come back to the piece and focus on our interpretative choices, both already comfortable with the notes: when preparing, we practiced in several different tempos, having listened to different interpretations of the pieces. We also worked on pencilling in dynamic markings, including sections that would be softer or more assertive — but what was nice was that in the concert, we ended up listening to each other so carefully that our interpretation felt relatively spontaneous!

I also had a lot of playing Clara Schumann’s Piano Trio – she is a composer I have long admired but up until this point had never played. In our rehearsals, Ruth, James, and I worked on coming together as an ensemble, listening to each other, and matching each others’ sound. In my own practice, I worked on bow distribution (in order to make as rich a sound as possible), and on my tuning and rubato in the solo sections. I thought it came together nicely in the concert, as we were all listening to each other appropriately and had a balanced, rich sound. As we played, I thought about Clara Schumann’s own embellished performances and tried to channel her playing (shoutout to the Goethe House in Weimar, where I learnt that Clara Schumann used to perform for Goethe!).

The piece I had initially felt most challenged by was The Art of the Fugue. When we had initially read through, the piece hadn’t always felt like it was coming together (tempo, balance, and style-wise). I was also a little daunted by leading the ending section. After listening to the piece a few times, following along with the score, I felt more comfortable with the tempo, and started listening more to the others, which helped massively with our balance. In our rehearsals, we talked a lot about our interpretive choices, discussing vibrato and balance. In the end, we settled on including some vibrato, but not too much, and as we practiced, we gradually became better at listening to each other and understanding the balance! In the end, despite a few hiccups, we performed pretty successfully, listening to each other and making sure that we were matching each others’ sound and tempo.

It was also fun to work on the ensemble pieces. I don’t have a lot of experience working with singers, so it was fun to work on balance. I especially enjoyed “Jesu bleibet meine Freunde.”

Also, it was fun to perform my solo on Tuesday! Even though playing in a concert is never as good as in individual practice, it was nice to play some solo violin Bach in the city in which he himself lived, and share what I have been practicing with others. It also gave me a nice opportunity to get back into practicing solo works even though I hadn’t taken solo lessons over the past year.

In all, this concert was a fabulous experience, and has inspired me to keep practicing and expanding as a musician over the Summer and into next year!

My favorite room of the Bach Museum was probably the instrument room, housing many period instruments from Bach’s time. Aside from the very entertaining music set up, where you could increase the volume of a chosen instrument to highlight its sound in the various Bach compositions playing throughout the room, I greatly admired the artistry of the antique instruments on display. Often, my favorite part of listening to music is appreciating the different colors each instrument brings to the sound, and, as such, I have grown very attuned to period instruments in the recordings I choose to listen to. It was a great experience to see so many of the instruments I admire in early recordings on display, particularly early woodwinds like the recorder, transverse flute, and oboe da caccia. I find their wooden construction to bring a warmer and more unprocessed sound to performances when compared to their modern counterparts.

Aside from sound, there is also a certain artistry in the carving of many wood instruments that I revere, more so with string instruments, as I am exposed to them more often. With the gambas and violin, I found their varnishings particularly beautiful; they weren’t overly shiny as many expensive instruments appear today, but had a more muted sheen and color that I don’t often see in string instruments. I see this more worn and rustic appearance being more consistent with my image of “tafelmusik” or music being brought out not only for formal concerts as we mostly see today, but also for everyday eating and dancing.

That being said, I always become very conflicted within myself when I see instruments kept in museums. On the one hand, they are historical artifacts made with stunning craftsmanship that should be admired by the public. Behind glass, their history is kept mostly safe from damage, ensuring they will be able to be studied for years into the future. Yet, their primary purpose is still to be played. I know specifically for good string instruments, most of the carving work is actually done on the inside of the instrument, a part no one will be able to see, but definitely hear in the instrument’s sound. Showcasing instruments only visually, in some sense, seems like a disservice to their makers, but also, how else will people be able to get this close to remarkable instruments if they are only owned and used by musicians?

As a linguistics major, one of my favourite aspects of the InterDaf language classes were the phonetics classes.

I think it was really cool that they taught the language with particular attention to the pronunciation and the production of german sounds that we don’t have in English. In particular, I enjoyed learning about the certain environments in which “ch” is pronounced /ç/ and when it is pronounced /x/.

Another interesting observation that I was able to make about the German language were the similarities to French.

For example, when answering yes to a negative question, you would reply “doch” , whereas for a positive question you would reply “ja” and I was able to compare french “si” and “oui”. Further, the tenses in German have similar purposes as the tenses in French. It also helped me to decipher when to use think and know “wissen” vs. “können” as it is the same in French with “croire” and “savoir”.

Additionally, I was really delighted to learn that in general, many of the irregular verbs that change the vowel when forming the past tense are shared amongst German  and English.  I was really happy to have been able to cross apply my knowledge of historical linguistics here as these verbs such as “ Iswim” which becomes “I swam” in English and is “ich schwimme” and “ich schwamm” in German are a class of verbs called strong verbs- which English Inherited from Proto-Germanic!

I thoroughly enjoyed all of the concerts that we were lucky enough to attend during the Princeton in Leipzig course, but I have to say that the Bach Cantata concert was truly my favourite!

In particular, my favourite of the three cantatas was . and I thoroughly enjoyed the counter-tenor arias and recitatives. The tone of the tenor arias was incredibly beautiful and I really enjoyed the intent behind the phrasing. Indeed having the English translations open on my phone during the concert really allowed me to have deeper appreciation for the phrasing and the ways in which the words were stressed or highlighted within their melodic contexts.

I also really loved having learnt about the cantatas and I think having the session with Professor Heller beforehand enhanced my listening experience, not only because I clearly recognised particular parts of the cantatas and had more familiarity with the piece, but also because I had a deeper understanding of how Bach composed the cantatas and how the piece fits within the wider timeline and context of Bach’s works.

Another aspect that made the concert a particular stand-out for me was having learnt two of the chorales prior to seeing the concert. I really enjoyed learning the chorales with the other Princeton in Leipzig students because I felt like having had the opportunity to make music together through singing, brought those of us who went to learn the chorales closer.

Thinking back on all of the many things that we did as a group in Leipzig, the final concert continues to stand out to me. Not only because the quality of music and musicianship was really beautiful, but also because it felt really special to be able to perform for each other.

Indeed at Princeton, my friends (who aren’t already in Glee) will see me perform if I can convince them to attend a Glee concert, but this final concert felt very different to that in a really good way. I assume that part of the reason this concert felt different was because we were performing a lot of solo and small group repertoire and so it feels much more vulnerable than a large ensemble, but at the same time it feels substantially more intimate. As such, I have to say that I was infinitely more nervous for this performance than any of the other performances I have been a part of at Princeton… however I think that Professor Heller, Professor Rankin, and Dr Ochs had created an environment for the whole Princeton in Leipzig group where the nervousness was once of anticipation and excitement! I think having Professor Heller, Professor Rankin, and Dr Ochs also performing in the concert really helped to solidify the safe and judgement-free performance environment that made the concert so special! I also thought that having many of the other InterDaf students and some of the staff attend was also really sweet!

I also really enjoyed having the ensembles with everyone at the start and end of the Concert! I think it felt very special that despite our different levels of musical experience, we were all able to come together and perform something as a group!

One of the most salient takeaways that I have from the Princeton in Leipzig course was the ability to work with the faculty on improving my solo performance pieces.

For both my solo songs, Schilflied by Mendelssohn and Leibst du um shönheit by Clara Schumann, I feel like I was able to improve the emotion and clarity in my singing by using my new understanding of the German language. As I started to learn more in my German classes and expand my vocabulary, I started to understand more of the words in my pieces, without having to rely solely on the translations. However, more than this, I also started to realise when the structure seemed unfamiliar and I was really grateful to have Professor Rankin explain the ways in which the German sentence structure can be manipulated for poetic effect. I think this really informed the way in which I approached the phrasing and emotive intent of the pieces as I continued to practice them and I started to enjoy the pieces even more.

Further, one particularly salient application of German language study transferring into my singing was when Professor Rankin pointed out that in certain words such as “Immer” and “Sonne” the doubled consonant is actually a geminate consonant and that placing emphasis on it would make my delivery more accurate. I also learnt that when one word ends with a vowel such as “du” and the following word starts with a vowel as in “um” in “Liebst du um Schönheit” that German speakers would insert a glottal stop between the two /u/ vowel sounds. I remember the first time I tried to sing through Liebst du um Schönheit whilst focusing on implementing this change and I was really shocked at how much it improved the phrasing and the overall tone of the line.

I also think that having had both Professor Heller and Dr Ochs listen to my singing in German and offer their insights and feedback into the ways in which I could improve my language pronunciation in order to increase clarity and support was really helpful. For example, being reminded to lengthen the vowel and place it on the beat was a really helpful tip that helped me to better control my breath for long phrases – especially in Shilflied.

I also think in a more general sense, having had the opportunity to be practicing and vocalising in Leipzig was particularly special to me because I haven’t sung any solo music in a long time due to vocal injury, however I felt incredibly supported and encouraged to do a solo music performance for the concert in Leipzig, but also to take singing lessons at Princeton to keep working on my voice.

So in all, I can say that having had the opportunity to work on my voice and on German Lieder in Leipzig was not only transformative regarding the way in which I will approach German Lieder going forward, but also regarding the way in which I approach singing in general!

The annotations, edits, and markings made by musicians on some of Bach’s original manuscripts were what stood out to me the most during our first visit to the Bach archive . It was fascinating to see how Bach’s performance ideas shifted and evolved throughout the course of his life as his works were performed, and how some of his ideas were recycled in different pieces or edited to fit a different piece’s requirements. I felt incredibly privileged by the opportunity to see some of the original scores (penned by his copyists) and the account books that included his signature.  I also enjoyed our later visit to the Bach VR exhibit, which highlighted an increase in accessibility beyond the scholarly realm to Bach’s life and works – I found his use of the snuff box amusing, his anecdotes about his childhood and life entertaining, but was a little unsettled by the idea that Bach was supposed to be talking to me…

Of particular interest to me during our primary visit was the cartoonish satire doodle in one of the choristers’ chorale books:

First, I think this scribble humanizes Bach’s choristers. It is easy to forget, as we discussed repeatedly during our time in Leipzig, that those we consider ‘greats’ were human too, and faced the same human interactions and emotions that we have today. It also uncovers a rare moment of humor, reminding me of the long history of political satire. Clearly, the rehearsals and work of the Thomanerchor cannot always have been as serious as I imagine them – was the chorister bored? Or perhaps sneaky? Or did he take the book back to his lodgings with him? It is fun to imagine the possibilities about how this image came about.

The doodle itself is indicative of a mindset of ridicule toward the Leipzig guards who paroled the city walls, hinting at an attitude of mockery on the part of the chorister in question. Perhaps this chorister thought that the guards were useless – after all, they are depicted as rats – or otherwise invasive and unnecessary. The rats look almost unable to use their large weapons, which stand much taller than them, suggesting that they are unable to do their jobs. Moreover, their heads are pointed upwards, making them look oblivious of their real responsibilities. All this indicates to me an attitude of mockery, distrust, and ridicule of the military presence in Leipzig from the chorister — perhaps he considered Leipzig’s defenses insufficient, or perhaps this is a criticism of the necessity of guards (is the music contained in the chorale book perhaps the antithesis to the militance or inefficiency of the guards in Leipzig?)… What can we take away more broadly from this image beyond the chorister’s own musings?

Peter Wollny noted that as of yet they had not been able to decipher the text around the doodle, and at that point in the course, my German was not good enough to attempt to figure it out myself. It would be fascinating to me to further uncover what was meant by this cartoon with the words that surround it!